Principles of Paradox
by Traum
Summary: Time is ripped apart, as the choices of the future affect the past.
1. Prologue

Author's Note:  This story is based on occurrences after the "regular" moonlight parade ending (with Epoch still around).  Several times throughout the story, as well, you'll see me make references to the idea that without Crono, Lavos could not have been defeated.  Obviously this isn't true in the context of the game, but for the sheer purposes of story-telling, let's let it be so, ok?  Other than that, I just hope you enjoy, and please, R/R.

**Principles of Paradox**

Prologue

Marle's hands were shaky as she tugged at the lifeless, motionless form of Crono.  Pulling him from this frozen moment, this chrono trigger, her heart raced, and her mind dared not utter a thought.  As Crono's body moved free, Magus put a doll in its place; a doll made to have exact likeness to the red-haired boy, yet decidedly was _not the red-haired boy.  Hurried by the absolute stillness of the moment, Marle, Robo and Magus exited the moment in time, and headed back to the peak of Death Mountain, __thinking they had perfectly accomplished their goal.  The time stream would remain the same, except Crono would now be a few days in the future, and, more importantly, would still be alive._

They thought incorrectly.

Time started once again, and Lavos decimated the fake image of Crono.  However, this immortal being had not lived nearly sixty-five million years only to be fooled by some petty human trickery.  In the instant that remained between existence of the doll and Lavos' utter destruction of it, the creature roared in rage, and realized he had been duped.  Crono was not there.  Crono was gone.  Crono… was alive.  This, the beast knew, was not right.  And if there was one thing Lavos hated with all his being, it was things that were not right, yet pretended to be.

In a little under fourteen thousand years, Lavos faced Crono again, but this time was un-able to stop the young man's amazing will for survival.  Lavos was defeated.  In these fourteen thousand years, however, Lavos had seen many things, had done many things, and had used the foresight of Queen Zeal to plan many things.  From the Black Omen, and his nestling place under the Earth, Lavos watched Crono being born, watched Crono growing up, and watched in utter silence as Crono bumped into Princess Nadia of the Guardia Kingdom, one fateful day.

Then, he stopped watching, and did something.

He did something horrible.

Something amazing.

_Something right.___


	2. Chapter 1

**Principles of Paradox**

Chapter 1

King Guardia the 31st woke up one morning, with the sun in his eyes.

Now this, you must understand, is very strange, because normally King Guardia the 31st wakes up with the sun to his back, or perhaps off to the side, as it streams in through the open doorway, and the blue glass window in the hallway outside.  Never was it to fall on his face, as that could be quite unpleasant for one who so adores and reveres sleep like King Guardia does.

This morning though, was different.  The door was indeed open, and the sunlight was indeed pouring in through the open frame, but now, it came to rest on his eyes, which, worn as they were, struggled to fight it out.

"Damn servants!  I told them never to move the bed, even the slightest!  I loved it where it was."

And, indeed, the bed had moved from where it lay the day before, or at least, the King thought so.  It was turned so as to face the western wall, and the headboard was lined up directly with the southern entrance.  The King got up slowly, and, cursing his servants under his breath, got up out of bed, and changed groggily into his work clothes.

"I guess I must not have noticed they moved it last night," he said to himself, trying to shake the cobwebs from his worn and wispy face.  The night before, he remembered almost painfully, was full of papers, papers, and…lo and behold, more papers.  Recruitment forms, tax laws, court reformations, and even plebiscites for another exhibition like the Millennial Fair.  All of them had been stacked on his desk for far too long, and Chancellor Green had been on his case for just as long of a time to finish them off.  Such was the day the King had enjoyed previously, but he was almost glad to have completed them all, as it left nothing to do today, besides the usual bureaucratic nonsense and mundane jobs associated with being King.  Still, all things considered, this was quite the moment of relaxation for the King.  If only he could've woken up without the sun in his eyes…

"I'll have to get someone to change that back, I guess."

The King headed out of his room, haggardly dressed, yet refreshed and rejuvenated by the morning sun.  His main servant, Johnson, was awaiting him outside, smiling like always, but dressed in slightly different clothes than usual.  They were more alive, exuberant - far more.

"Going for a different look today, Johnson?"  The King playfully asked, smiling widely under his curly white mustache.

"Not really," the youthful-looking, often confused Johnson replied, his eyes almost caught between two strange thoughts.

The King caught a hold of this, and stopped before allowing his servant to robe him.  "Is there something wrong?"

"No," Johnson replied enthusiastically, his eyes suddenly wiping themselves clean of any worry.  "I just… I don't know.  It's weird, almost like déjà vu, but not at all."

The King regarded the younger man strangely, before chuckling and slipping his arms into his royal cape.  "If you say so Johnson."  The two then headed down the hallway, before cutting left, and bearing downstairs.

* * *

At the breakfast, lunch, and dinner table of the royal family sat a number of people, all different shapes, sizes, genders and races.  Mystics and humans, men and women alike, sat there, discussion abound as the cook each brought them their morning meal.

Princess Nadia, or Marle as she was known to her close friends, was half-heartedly nibbling away at a piece of well-cooked pork, staring blazingly at her still full plate, and thinking anxiously of nothing in particular, yet someone very particularly.  Her mind had all too often rested on him for quite a while now, and even when she was around him she had begun to regard him in a different manner.  Now, more often than not though, she found herself wondering if _he thought the same way._

King Guardia came down the stairs just as Marle was beginning to daydream, his steps easily picked up with the thunderous patter that shadowed them.  Arriving with his normal entourage of soldiers, counselors, servants and the Chancellor, he came to the table clamorous as usual.

"King Guardia, we must send an army to crush those monsters in the forest near Porre.  We've received three complaints in the past week!"

"King Guardia, we have to get this next exhibition funding immediately!  The Millennial Fair was such a huge success!"

"King Guardia, the treasury is overflowing!  I need your approval in order to spend enough to cut down a portion of Guardia forest and rebuild the old cathedral to the southwest!"

Guardia merely walked through his groupies, headfast and staring at the table to which he resigned himself every morning.  Every single one of the King's servants knew that when he sat down at such a table, they were quiet.  It was one of the few unwritten rules of the land, but one they all observed closely.

After seating himself across from Marle, and allowing a short period of time for his taskforce to disembark, he set himself on the meal laid before him, ravaging it hungrily and thinking little of anything else - savoring both the food and the moment.

Before long, however, he noticed Marle's blank stare, as well as her full plate and empty hands.  He regarded her strangely for a moment, then asked in as subtle a tone as he could, "something wrong?"

Half surprised by her father's sudden interjection to what had been a nice foray into dreamland, Marle's eyes whipped to face Guardia's.  "Oh," she answered back, suddenly at first, before calming a moment and returning to a boorish state, "no, not really."

Guardia saw through his daughter's feigned innocence without even the lowliest of efforts, but before he could patronize her, he recalled a moment they had once shared, when change had been promised - a promise he planned to keep.  "Ok," he replied, simply, before going back to his food.

Marle lazily gave up on her food, leaving it on the table as she got up from her chair, walked around and kissed her father gently on the cheek.  "I'm going out for a while now.  I'll be back for lunch probably."  Guardia just nodded, smiling at her as he chewed silently on his food.  She smiled back, before heading for the stairway to the main floor.  Before she could begin the climb though, she halted in her tracks, whirled around, and asked with strangely newfound joy, "Can Crono come over for lunch, maybe?"

Guardia turned to face his blonde-haired daughter, and a smile lit up on his face, as he nodded slightly, and held onto his promise for a moment longer.  "Of course, dear Nadia."

Marle's eyes went wide with delight, and she grinned wildly as she exclaimed, "Thanks Daddy."  Then she headed up the stairs and left behind her father.

Little did she know, however, that this would be the last time she would see _her father, ever again._

* * *

_"Please, __Lucca__, help me!"_

_"I can't mommy, I don't know the password."_

_"__Lucca__, please!"_

_"Mommy!"_

_A sickening crunch.  A scream, and the surge of power gone, as the machine steamed, giving its last dying life to Lara's legs._

_Lucca rushed around the corner of the mammoth device, and saw her mother writhing in agony, screaming helplessly, blood shooting out of too many places to comprehend.  Lucca fell then, as a knock rang on the wooden door._

A knock shook Lucca from her dream.  A knock on her door.  "Lucca, wake up!  We gotta try that new water-compressor you made last week!"

It was her father, Taban, calling from the steps below her bedroom.  "Alright, I'm up.  I'll be there in just a while," she called back down, slowly rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and reaching for the glasses on her nightstand.

_Why these dreams?  She questioned herself as she rose out of bed, her head pounding and her face drenched in a cold sweat.  __Why now?  She slipped into a fresh pair of clothes, patting her purple hair down as she stretched her muscles, letting them crack in sweet satisfaction.  __I changed time.  The accident never happened.  Mother still has her legs, she can still walk.  This she was sure of.  How many times she had just watched her mother in awe, she did not know.  So differently had the accident shaped her.  Lively and outgoing her mother appeared now - enjoying life to its fullest at all times.  In the other world, the other time, she was so quiet; reserved to the end, and always thinking in terms of "what if" and "maybe".  No longer.  This new Lara, Lucca had long since decided, was one she quite enjoyed being around - one she could no longer think of going without._

She wiped her glasses clean on her sleeve for a moment, and then headed down the small flight of stairs, where she found her father anxiously pacing the narrow hallway outside.  "Dad, what're you so anxious about today?"

Taban looked at her quickly, a thin smile creeping up on his face, "Me?  Oh, nothing really.  I'm just, you know, kind of restless.  It's been so long since you and I just went inventing.  You know, you were gone for a while there, and ever since you got back, you haven't been as excited about inventing things."

Lucca sighed, but smiled reflectively at her father, "I know, dad, it's just that after saving the world and everything, inventions don't seem that important.  After all, the people in 1999 and later all seemed to have stuff we've never even thought of.  I don't know if we make any huge contribution to the scientific community anywhere in history."

To this Taban smiled, always ready for a challenge, "well then perhaps we can change history, can't we?"

"Yeah," Lucca replied, something about the off-handedness of the remark striking her as strange, "maybe we can."

Taban then headed out into the main lab room of the house, and Lucca reluctantly followed.

* * *

Deep below even the loudest rumblings of the Earth, slept a creature too awesome for imagination.  A creature powerful and amazing in essence.  A creature whose fate was intertwined with that of the Earth's.  A creature, who by all intents and purposes, was cosmic and infinite in his sheer control of the world.

A creature, who was doomed.

His fate was chosen, breaking away slowly from that of the Earth.  His own mortality was quickly becoming apparent to him, and even the limitless knowledge he had accumulated of and about the planet Earth, would not save him from this fate.

Fate though, was not everything, he had learnt.  And it would not be so for him.  He would not let it be.

Here, a creature stirred.

* * *

Melchinor looked out into the vast expanse of blue sky that surrounded his small hut, and for some reason, he felt that something was _wrong.  _

What was wrong, he could not say, but undoubtedly something _was wrong.  The air was shifted, almost jaded and exposed - like it was being revealed as something it should not have been.  Melchinor sat down on an old chair by one of his windows, took one of the blades he was working on with the remnants of the Rainbow shell, and watched the sky._

Yes, something was quite wrong.  And time, Melchinor was accustomed to knowing, would soon show just what it was.

* * *

Marle bounded down the stairs from her room, freshly clothed and looking in far better condition than normal.  Her hair was neatly combed and tied back, and her face was still tingling from the droplets of water she had splashed on it.  Her eyes shone their bright hazel color, her inward joy shining outwards.  So excited was she to see her beloved, so powerful was his intoxication in her.  She sighed lightly as a smile towards Chancellor Green spread across her face.  Strangely, the Chancellor did not smile back, though he had obviously seen her do so.  His eyes were intent upon her, but his face was rigidly set, almost painfully so.  Marle just regarded him strangely, walking quickly out of his line of vision, something about the hollowness of his eyes frightening her.  Ever since he had been set free by Marle and Crono, the Chancellor was usually quite fond of them, so it seemed bizarre to her that he would now give her such a cold stare.  _Perhaps he's just worried about something, Marle thought reluctantly as she headed towards the main entrance._

"I'll be back in a couple hours," she told the entrance guards as she went to pull open the doors.  She did so, and upon releasing them, she was flooded with the sounds and sights of the brilliantly fresh outdoors.  The valiant greens, the serene blues, even the open browns of the dirt and bark.  The whites of the clouds, the yellow of the sun, the black…

The black?

Ah yes, the black.  Indeed there was black there in front of Marle as she stood in the open doorway.  Two powerful, magnificent spheres of black.  They were eyes.  Eyes belonging to a person who stood directly in front of Marle, looking at her intently.

Marle nearly jumped backwards, as the young man that stood in front of her merely rested in place, looking onwards with those black eyes.  Her heart was pounding as she looked back at him, for the first time getting a glance at the one who had so strangely eluded her attention.

His eyes, as she had witnessed, were black.  However, they were very much more than that.  He was tall, not overly so, but just the right size, perhaps as tall as Crono, or Magus had been.  His skin was dainty and white, but full of a fresh and pale rose color that accentuated his features.  His clothes were dark and elegant, and he wore a long, thin sword sheathe at his side.  His hair was thick and black, but tinged purple so as to reflect perfectly the rays of light that shone down on it.  His entire face was rather narrow and pleasant, but somewhat disconcerted by a single feature.  Marle found herself staring into those eyes for several breathless moments as she stood in the doorway, while he awaited her outside it.

"Excuse me?"  He asked, his voice delectably soft and hesitant.

"Hmm?"  Marle replied, still looking headlong into his eyes.

"This is the main entrance of Guardia castle, correct?"

Marle did not respond, but instead felt something rise inside herself as she gaped at those eyes.  So dark, so black, so deep and alive.  These, she quickly decided, were eyes as they were meant to be.

"Bow!  Come right in!"

It was the Chancellor, calling from behind Marle, and rushing towards the entrance with as much speed as his tiny legs could muster.  "Come in, come in!"  He brushed past Marle and took the much younger man by the arm, dragging him into the castle.  "You must be tired from your long journey from Porre.  Please, feel free to go down to the knight's room, and get some rest."

Bow, the young dark-haired man, smiled, "No thank you Chancellor, it wasn't much of a walk at all.  I'd actually like to get started as soon as possible."

The two walked straight past Marle, who turned to watch them go, as they talked furiously.

"We'll get you set up into a knight's uniform before you know it.  You're a very welcome addition to the Knights of the Square table."

"Thank you Chancellor."

"I can't believe you're willing to come and protect the kingdom at such a young age.  Barely older than our very own Princess Nadia, indeed."

At this Bow took a backwards glance at Marle, and flashed her the eyes she had been so fixated on, as well as a smile nearly bright enough to light up the room.  _He's very handsome, she soon realized, __and that sword he has on his side, it looks so familiar.  Like something Crono would wear…_

_Crono!_

With stupidity running high on the list of things to call herself, she hurriedly closed the door behind her, and headed out into the forest ahead of her, rushing quickly to make up on lost time.  Even as she tried recalling how long it had been since she'd seen Crono, the pair of eyes she had just witnessed protruded into her mind time and time again.  _True eyes, she soon labeled them, __very true._

She left the castle forest quickly, and then began to head towards Crono's home to the east.


	3. Chapter 2

**Principles of Paradox**

Chapter 2

Marle's arms felt free from her body as she bounded into the town's centre; her lungs taking in the sour-sweet feel of the air for all they were worth.  The sun was all around her, filling her with its silent beauty and effortless light.  The ground beneath her was supple to her feet, and even the people all about her seemed happy and carefree.  Her world was finally coming together, reaching that elusive little pocket of security that would make it untouchable by even the most hated of forces.  Looking forward, to the east, the reason for such assuredness quickly came into view.

Crono's house was small by the standards of some in the village, but Marle loved it for the very same reason.  There was only Crono and his mother, and they lived lives almost too relaxed to comprehend.  Had she been handed the chance to live such a life, she would've easily taken it.  Unfortunately, no such opportunity was presented to one of royal blood, and that, it proved, was the thought Marle hated the most.

Still, as she leapt up the stairs to Crono's door, she was content to merely have a piece of such a life, and in the least, she hoped Crono realized how much he had been blessed.  She knocked twice, and looked high into the sky one final time, observing with tranquility the perfection of the skies.

The door swung open, and there stood Crono's mother, plate in hand as she smiled warmly at Marle.  "Marle, dear, come right in!"

Marle smiled back and walked into the house, carefully closing the door behind her.  The room was empty except for one of Crono's two cats, which Marle fondly recalled having to go rescue, along with Crono's mother, after the gates had closed.  The memory brought a smirk to Marle's face, recollecting the look Crono's mother had held when they found her fearfully pressed against the wall, holding onto the cats as a small green imp laughed hysterically at her.  Crono had knocked him back a couple hundred feet… or was it Lucca?  Or maybe it was Marle?  The young blonde girl couldn't remember, but chuckled nonetheless.

"I just finished having breakfast, as you can probably tell," Crono's mother pointed a finger at the half-clean dining table, "but Crono couldn't quite join me."

"Why not?"  Marle asked wonderingly, her head titled to the side, smile still vaguely present on her face.

"Oh, he's been feeling under the weather the past couple days.  His entire body is sore, or so he says."  At this the older woman laughed slightly, "of course, he hasn't been saying much lately.  His throat is hoarser than an over-worked, over-worried mother."  Marle laughed at this as well, but the eldest of the two quickly changed her expression.  "In fact, honey, I don't even think he'll be able to go out today.  He's been sick as a dog, and I really don't want to risk him coming down with something bad."

"Oh," Marle replied, hurt, her smile gone and her head dropping, "I see.  That's ok."

Crono's mom put down the dish she was drying, and walked over to Marle, touching the young woman on the shoulder, and telling her, "I'm sure he wouldn't mind you visiting him in his room though.  And it's fine by me too, so long as you don't stay too long, since I wouldn't want you catching whatever he's gotten."

Marle's smile instantly returned.  "Oh, thank you so much!"  She exclaimed loudly, hugging Crono's mother tightly before letting the exasperated older woman go.  "I'll go talk to him right now."  She smiled widely, then headed towards the stairs, straight towards Crono's bedroom.

_So it's just one small damper… I won't let it ruin my day._

* * *

_His friends lay in small heaps of beaten rubble before him, and while his body told him to give up, to refute, he would not.  Too far had he come to merely allow himself to die.  His friends had cheated death for him, altered the course of history forever, merely to have him here, by their side when they needed him the most.  He would not let them down._

_Glenn and Magus lay knocked down beside one another, both unconscious - mortal enemies united against a common foe.  Robo was a pile of useless parts near the corner of whatever kind of room they were in.  Lucca, desperate to help him, had been knocked to the wall, completely and utterly defenseless.  Ayla still struggled to stand, but it was becoming painfully obvious that she could no longer fight, even though her entire being urged her to.  Marle… Marle was on the ground, racked in pain, yet concentrating with all her will enough power to restore even one of her fallen comrades.  Crono saw with mortal illness the beauty of her in that wallowed position, and it urged him on.  As he had done once before, he stood in the face of an un-namable beast._

_The decoys of Lavos' core were defeated, and somehow Crono could tell that the being himself had run out of options.  Only one thing remained to be done to the creature, and to save the world.  The red-haired boy dropped his sword to his side, looked straight at the revolting, pulsating, floating beast, raised his arms to the heavens, and prepared one final Luminaire._

_Before he could muster the strength needed to do so though, the beast hit him with something.  It panged him in the stomach, burning through his armor until it connected to his skin.  There he felt a pinch, nothing more.  Like he had been stung by an insect in its dying breath.  With utter contempt, he ignored the stinging feeling, and used all the force he had left, killing the final form of the God called Lavos._

_A loud thud echoed in his mind, as he hit the floor._

The loud thud of the door shutting snapped Crono into the waking world.  He shot up in his bed, the cold sweat on his face stinging his eyes.  He took in as deep a breath as he could, trying to relax his pumping heart.  He had _been there again, he had been in front of Lavos one final time, and he had killed him, __again.  Dreams like this were coming far too often to him now, and more and more often the pinch he felt from whatever Lavos had sprung against him hurt more and more, as though in the dream he were actually there._

He heard Marle's joyful voice downstairs, as well as his mother's, and his body started to relax in the dark room he inhabited.  For a moment the voices below him lowered, and he worried that Marle would not come to see him, but then an overjoyed shout from her proved otherwise.  He smiled.  Though he had long since admitted he admired her, seeing Marle now carried a different feeling to him, one he was hard pressed to name.  Doubtless though, he was glad to hear she had come to visit him.

She took the stairs two at a time, hurrying up them with reckless abandon.  Crono wiped his forehead clean, and cleaned out his eyes of any sleep, hoping he wouldn't look like a complete wreck.  Little could be done about his always unruly hair though, so he let it go as she knocked on the wall near his bed, announcing her presence.

"Crono, you up?"  She asked.

He opened his mouth to affirm her she could come in, but all that came out was a lot of dry throat and a sort of choking noise.  He coughed slightly, and then hit the same wall she had with his feet.

She came around the corner, and the instant she saw him, her face changed into a mix of sympathy and happiness.  "Awww… you look horrible."

He gave her a sarcastic "thanks" look, and she laughed at him in return.

"You know what I mean.  You've looked better."  She was smiling widely, and so was he.  She walked over to his bedside, and stood just slightly over him, their eyes nearly at the same level.  "How long have you been like this?"

He held up three of his fingers, and then coughed once again.

"Aww.  I'm sure you're mom's been taking good care of you though, hasn't she?"

He nodded.

"Of course, I wouldn't expect anything less."  She reached down and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  He looked up at her and smiled as strongly as he could, which wasn't very considering his health.  "You want me to try casting a cure spell on you?  It might heal whatever ails you."

Crono shook his head.  He'd tried that already, calling Lucca to bring Glenn over so he could try his magic on her.  Though he knew Marle had nearly the same magical powers, both he and Lucca had been dying to see Glenn again, and the reunion was much loved.  Strangely though, the magic had failed to work. "Thanks though," he mouthed at Marle, bringing his hand across to lay it on top of her own.  She took his palm and wrapped her hand around his, looking into his eyes with hope.

"I know you need your rest, so I'll be going pretty soon, but I'm glad I saw you.  Come by whenever you're feeling better.  I'll probably just hang out with Lucca today."

Crono nodded, regarding how beautiful Marle looked through the filtered sun in his room.  Like before, only so much more so.

She slipped her hand out of his, and then leaned over and gave him a hug which he returned.  Then she backed away from him, and, giving one final smile, waved goodbye and walked back down the stairs out of the house.

Even after she was gone, he stared at the spot where she'd stood, and then sighed deeply as a strange feeling coursed through his heart.  Even in his somewhat dazed state, he knew that it was a good feeling, and cherished it for as long as he could before he felt too tired to do so.  Then he set his head back on his pillow and fell into sleep.

Down the stairs, Marle thanked Crono's mother for allowing her to see him, but before she could leave, the older woman asked, "Marle, dear, where's that pendant I always saw you wearing before?  I haven't seen you wear it since you saved me, Charles and Neko from that monster in the olden days."

"Oh," Marle answered, grabbing faintly for the naked spot below her throat where the pendant usually rested.  "I just… haven't felt like wearing it much since then.  It's kind of, you know, done its purpose.  I figure it should rest for a while."

"I see," Crono's mom replied softly, smiling at Marle as she exited the house.  "Good bye for now."

"Good bye!"  Marle replied as she closed the door behind her, and walked back down the steps.  The air was still perfect, and the sky still flawlessly blue, but as she continued to rub her hand over her neck, she felt strangely that perhaps she _should be wearing the pendant._

And, of course, in the great matter of things, she should have been.

* * *

"Please, feel free to take a seat, right here if you wish."

Bow nodded and smiled at the young female cook who was guiding him to his meal.  "Thank you," he said softly, looking at her intently.  She just blushed slightly, then smiled, nodded and left him to bring the food.

The black haired young man gazed across the nearly empty room, regarding the young soldiers to his right with curiosity for a moment, before the young woman returned, still red in the face, and placed his food in front of him.  "Thanks," he said again.

_It's very different here, from home.  A lot darker, more solemn.  He started to eat his meal quickly, wanting to meet with the rest of the knights before the day was over.  __Still, it's not bad I guess.  About what I would expect from people of this caliber.  He threw away a loose bone from his teeth, then took a deep drink of water before going back to his food.  __How much longer, I wonder?  How much longer till…_

"Bow!  I'm glad I found you!"

The young man turned his head quickly to find the Chancellor walking towards him with obvious intent.  "Hello, Chancellor."

"Listen, I have a mission for you to undertake, as soon as you're finished your meal."

"Oh, already?"

"Yes," the Chancellor responded quickly - perhaps _too quickly.  "I need you to go out and find Princess Nadia, she's somewhere in the town, and I need you to pick her up and bring her back here."_

"Of course," Bow replied, gazing into the Chancellor's face, and disturbingly finding it full of insecurity and… alarm.  "Something wrong with her, Chancellor?"  Bow asked coolly.

"No, of course not," the Chancellor replied with undue haste, "the King just thought it would be a good way for you to get used to the land, and you know, test you out a little."

"Ah, I see."  Bow nodded gravely, noting with expression the rapidness of the Chancellor's eyes, which darted side to side with no recourse.  "I'll get on it right away."

The Chancellor thanked him heartily before quickly dispersing, and as Bow watched him go, he deeply began to wonder if the Chancellor took him as a fool.  For Bow, of all people, knew that the King would never, ever leave someone he didn't know to care for his daughter.  In this aspect it was known he was very particular.  The Knight Captain, perhaps, but definitely not some stranger from Porre.  No, this was not the King's doing at all.  This was the decision of the Chancellor, and, somehow, Bow felt his intentions were not entirely honorable.

The black and purple haired man finished his meal quickly, rechecked the sword at his side, then headed out to follow his orders.  For now, he would play the Chancellor's game.  Should the old man step on too many toes though, Bow was determined to not let the Chancellor alter his plans.  The game, then, would be ended quickly.

* * *

1300 years in the future, from Bow's point in time, Robo stood looking out into the sky.  And, by all standards, it was a horrible sky.

Clouds rumbled everywhere, dark shadows of impenetrable black and grey, rolling endlessly over a lush green pageant of life.  Clouds such as these were strange, considering technology had been implemented to control the weather, and they should've easily blocked out such dark clouds.  _Perhaps something is wrong with the weather-station, Robo thought as he looked out over it all._

Even as he considered the possibility though, he realized _that was not the problem.  No, there was something wrong, on a whole, here.  More and more often, in the past month, he had noticed an increasing amount of errors in various drives and disks on his system.  Sometimes even, entire databases had been erased, and over-written.  If it were not for the fact that other parts of his memory remembered the original databases, he would have had no idea of such a problem, and would've gone on living without the memories those databases contained.  And though Robo was incapable of a tangible fear, the thought of coming out of hibernation at some point, and not knowing who he was, scared him immensely._

Yes, something was indeed wrong, Robo realized as he looked out, _and I think I better find out what.  __Perhaps though, I've merely outlived my intended life span.  Maybe I'm just getting to the point that something has to be gotten rid of if I want to continue._

He sincerely hoped not, because that would mean forgetting Ayla, Crono, Magus, Glenn, Marle and even Lucca.  And, even after only a few months of his new life in the repaired future, he did not want to forget those people who had shown him so much.  Not at all.

Still though, something definitely was wrong.  And Robo intended to find out what.

* * *

A thin, tumbling wind churned all around the young boy, whose eyes were so alive.  It curled around him, chilling him to the bone, and leaving nothing but pain in its wake.  It was frigid, holistic, and frightening to the core.  Yet those eyes continued to shine, to flicker in the dim light of the moon, in spite of this wind.  These eyes were not to quit, not to forego any ground, and most definitely, not to surrender.  These were eyes, as they were meant to be.

The branches of the trees all around him whistled, flapping and whipping all about.  They echoed in his mind, numb and pained as it was, and whispered to him, calling out the thing which he was, and would forever be.

_Alone._

They hummed it to him, hollering it in his ears through the mercilessness of the wind.  "No," he cried to himself, sobbing through the choke in his throat, "I'm not alone.  My parents, they're here."

_Alone._

They chorused back at him, a sudden gust of the infinitely invisible stuff calling him out, asking for proof.  He had none, of course, and it had plenty.

_Alone._

He merely curled into a tighter ball, clasping onto the rags that served as clothes, in the face of the wind.  His eyes burned in their holes, in spite of the wind, always to battle it, to ward it away from that which lay underneath.

Suddenly though, the wind stopped.

It hung still around him, dropping as if in the face of a greater adversary.  He lifted his head, just a little, to look about, and then, a new voice, louder than the wind, spoke to him.

_Crono._

It came from the Earth, the ground and the dirt all around him.  It said a word, a name, and instantly, the wind came alive again.

_Crono.  Alone._

The boy began to shiver, as he became trapped between the two words, the two truths.  The sources.

_Crono.  Alone._

"Crono," the boy mouthed, shivering all the while, his eyes still burning with desire to be free.  "Crono."

Across the forest, the young boy's parents clung to each other in tears, their beloved missing, gone.  They sobbed his name to one another, sweet nothings passing by in the echoes of the wind.  The earth rumbled in their tears, memorizing the word they said to one another, knowing it by heart, then twisting it to its own fashion.

The wind chorused.

_Alone._

* * *

"No, not there, just a little to the right."

"Here?"

"Yes, that's perfect."

Marle pushed down, and with a little effort, slid the cylindrical object into the hole.  Instantly energy coursed through it, and the entire project came to life.

"Ah!  Yes, that's it!"

Taban got up from the ground, and looked delightfully upon the brilliant invention he had completed.  "Brilliant," he whispered to himself.  "What do they call this again, Lucca?"

"A toaster, Dad.  And I don't think it's something we should be amazed by."

"It cooks your food for you!  How could this not be an amazing invention?"

"They have better," Lucca replied, smiling mischievously at her father, delighted to see him so happy.

Marle smiled as well, looking down on the little device before them, which had taken only a couple hours to design and fashion, with Lucca and Taban's brilliant ingenuity.  She couldn't help but feel completely out of place surrounded by the genius of the two, but she had long since grown accustomed to the feeling - Lucca was her friend, and no matter what, they'd always have fate to tie the two of them together.  Or so it seemed.

"That was fun, I have to admit," Marle sighed as Taban continued to gaze affectionately at the toaster, "we gotta do this again, sometime."

Lucca looked at the young princess and smiled, "yeah, for sure.  We'll bring Crono along next time too."

"Yeah, I hope so."

A knock suddenly came from the front door of Lucca's house, and Taban pulled himself away from his stare long enough to open it.  "Hello?"

"Hello sir, I'm here looking for Princess Nadia.  I was told she was seen around here a little while ago."

Marle instantly recognized the pale voice, and turned around quickly to find Bow standing in the doorway, looking directly at her.  Her stare was instant.

"Of course, she's right here.  You're from the castle, right?"

Bow just nodded, not letting Marle out of his sight for a moment.  "Princess, I have orders to bring you back to the castle.  Apparently the King wants to see you."

Marle tore herself away from the pair of black orbs that served as his eyes long enough to reply, "Alright, I'll be there in a minute."

"Of course, Princess."

Marle dared not look at the young man in the door as she turned about to pick up the ribbon she had taken out of her hair.  As she did so, though, she caught Lucca staring blatantly at Bow.  "Lucca!"  She half-way yelled, turning instantly to face her purple-haired friend.

"Huh?"  Lucca replied dumbly, barely pulling her eyes away long enough to look at Marle.  "Something wrong, Marle?"

"…No," Marle answered, surprised at her own response.  When she'd caught Lucca staring, almost instantly anger had risen in her.  A searing, pained type of anger, almost like… jealousy.  "No, I was just wondering, if, um… maybe you'd like to come over, for supper?"

"I'd love to," Lucca replied, smiling, and almost instantly Marle regretted the offer.  Of course she would want to come over - if only to get a closer look at the young man who had caught her attention.   Marle caught herself in mid-thought though, realizing how foolish she sounded, even to herself.  _She can have him, as long as she leaves Crono alone._

Marle reached across and pulled Lucca by the hand, not waiting to see if she was going to bring anything with her.  "Come on, let's go."

Hurriedly, she thanked Taban for having her over, and then dragged Lucca with her out the door, allowing Bow to take the lead off of the island.  _What's with me today?  I feel so strange._

"Come on, you two, we have a long way to go, and the sun won't stay up for much longer."  Indeed it would not, as it was already beginning to set, crawling its way slowly down the horizon.  Marle had seemingly lost track of time, and in the lukewarm winter of Guardia, the setting of the sun meant the lost of safety.

Bow pushed the two of them quickly, walking with a brisk pace.  Something didn't feel right to him, and his mind was too worked to worry about safety or battle at a time like this.  In the shelter of the castle, he would be alone with his thoughts.  Still, he made sure to take the occasional glance back at the two young women, careful to keep them in sight, should something happen.  All too often when he looked back, Marle had her eyes on the ground, while her friend constantly gawked at Bow, curiously gazing at him with wonder behind her eyes.  _Either of them will do, he thought, smiling strongly at Lucca, and causing her to blush, __but Nadia would be preferable.  She's very pretty, and close to the King as well.  "Hurry up; I wouldn't want you two to get lost, now would I?"_

_Not much longer, I hope._

Just a few dozen miles to the south, nearly 400 years in the past, and near the edge of the forest west of Porre, a young boy went off of a path to pick up a small flower, unannounced to his parents.  They continued walking south, entrapped in each other's conversation, around a bend, and then took the left road towards the town.  The young boy, whose eyes shone even in the night, didn't see them go, and it took him several moments to pull the flower loose.  When he did so, he walked over the bend, but had no idea which path his parents had taken.  He walked right, and into the forest.

The wind began to blow.

* * *

King Guardia sat on his throne, and sighed.  It was beginning to turn late, and Nadia had not arrived home yet.  He was beginning to worry, though according to the Chancellor, someone had already been dispatched to bring her back.  This was not comforting to the King in the least, since _someone wasn't him, and therefore __someone wasn't good enough.  Still, there was little he could do but wait, as modestly as he enjoyed the thought of doing so._

"She'll be here soon, King Guardia," the Chancellor assured, his words almost cooing with overly sympathetic tones.  "I have my best men on the job."

"I hope so," the King replied.  The Chancellor then turned his back to the King and headed out of the throne room, smiling intently under his wizened face.  "I hope so," the King echoed again.

The King was left to his thoughts alone for a minute, as he breathed deeply, hoping to expel what ailed his mind.  He tried concentrating on some of the matters of the state, but few remained after the work of the day before, and the stuff that did remain seemed trivial and useless.  Eventually he contented himself to merely wait, as the minutes crept by, and the sun began to wail in the distance.

* * *

Melchinor looked down on the sword he had fashioned, viewing it through keen, observant eyes, and then struck it forcefully the palm of his hand.  A clang shot through the air of his small home, but the metal had held strong.  The nearly ancient man smiled, then placed his hands over the long blade, and began to chant some archaic words from ages not even of his original time.  The sword began to glow bright pink, illuminating the room beyond the small flame of the lamp on the wall, and pouring light out into the wilderness of the night.

His words slowed in pace, then stopped altogether, and he pulled his hands away.  The sword slowly began to dim back to its normal silver color, and the handle rattled on the table that it laid on.  Melchinor picked the sword up whole, and looked it over.  The metal was flawless, even more so than many of his other creations.  Still, it lacked the brute strength of his best creation, the one that at that very time resided in a small drawer in a house across the ocean.

The last rays of the sun crept in through Melchinor's window, and a silent wind pulsed all around the house, wrapping it up in nothingness.  Slowly putting the sword back down, the old man stared out of the sun, and for a few fleeting moments, was captivated by its listless beauty.  And that's when he realized it.

"No," he gasped to himself, as the brazen truthfulness of the circumstances came to him, rushing into him with power incomprehensible.  He shot out of his chair, hurried for his purse of gold, then changed into a warm set of clothes, and prepared to set off.  No time could be wasted, for time itself was against him, against them all.  Right before he left the small house though, he looked back, and picked up the sword which he had just fashioned, wrapping it in a long cloth and tying it closely to his back.

_Just in case._


	4. Chapter 3

**Principles of Paradox**

Chapter 3

Morning had slipped into afternoon, afternoon into night, and still there was nothing but a stillness of wrongdoing in the air.  Stars twinkled weakly in the pitch black cloak of night, yet they could not pierce its limitless cove.  Tension hung strong, even around the people who were usually immune to its presence.  Windows were closed, doors locked, and weapons gripped in the cool night air.  Something was inexplicably afloat, and everyone knew it, without knowing what _it was._

Something was about to happen.

And it wasted little time in doing so.

As the inhabitants of Guardia Castle slept - including the King, Marle, Lucca, the Chancellor, and even Bow - the small plaque that hung on the Chancellor's door began to change.  The word "Green" that was chiseled beside the honorary title began to slip away, fading slowly out of existence.  As if someone were slowly erasing it from the surface of the wood, the word began to disappear into nothingness.  In a short while, the place where the word had been was empty, the wood perfectly smooth, as if it had never been touched, never tampered with in its existence.

Because, of course, it hadn't been.

Soon though, that began to change.  Slower even than the word had disappeared, it began to become replaced, overwritten by another word, another name.  The distinct shape of five letters began to weave their way into the wood, indenting themselves in perfect spacing with the title of Chancellor.  Five letters that, once before, had been on that very same plaque, that very same title.  A name that had been ended, only to rise up again.

And had the soldier assigned to watch the Chancellor's room been awake, he would've seen that very name engraved upon the plaque as though it had always been so.  Which, of course, it had been.  For the plaque said the truth of the chancellor, and the truth, by definition, does not lie.  Of course, time isn't supposed to lie either, or memories.  But the name, by equal definition, contradicted both.

Chancellor_ Yakra, the plaque said._

* * *

Bow awoke with a sudden jolt, snapping up in his bed, his eyes wide and quick, darting to the doorway of the knights' room.  Someone was outside the door, and had been so for quite a while.  How Bow knew this, he wasn't quite sure, but often since he had been sent out into the world he had felt these pangs of intuition, and experience told him to trust them for all they were worth.

Careful not to wake the other deeply slumbering knights, he picked up his sword and tiptoed as quietly as he could across the room, till he was pressed up against the door, listening for any sound coming from the other side.  Faintly, he could pick out some sort of hissing sound, instantly realizing it was not human.  He unsheathed his sword, and prepared to attack whatever waited outside.  Just as he reached for the doorknob though, there was a particularly loud hiss, followed by the pattering of soft feet outside.  He waited till the footsteps had died, then slowly opened the door.

The hallway was empty, but just beyond the door was a trail of faintly visible purple skin, leading straight to another door some ways down the hallway.  A mystic snake had been here, and the swiftness of its departure meant little but trouble.  Bow's pitch-black eyes scanned the hallway as he stepped out into it, but other than the little markings of shed skin along the ground, there remained no evidence of anyone's arrival.

A thin slice of the sun cut through the bars of an open window, a slice barely existing beyond the horizon of the planet itself.  Morning was fast approaching, and someone had apparently sent a spy to watch on the knights of the square table, or at least one knight in particular.  Bow was usually suspicious of those around him, but now he had no doubt a traitor was in the midst of the castle.  Perhaps this could become a problem.

"New Guy, close the door already, there's still time before sunrise!"

"Of course, sorry," Bow replied to the half-awake shout of one of his fellow knights, coming back into the room and shutting the door behind him.

"That's better."

Bow returned to his bed, and laid his sword by his side, but did not try to return to sleep.  Already his mind was churning, listing the few suspects he knew by name, and the numerous more he knew by face.  As the sun started to rise, thoughts burned in his head, calling out to him.  _Perhaps it's already come for me.  Maybe it already knows I'm here, and is trying to stop me before I can even start.  The thought worried him, but he was confident in his own abilities.  __If it's weakling enough to send a spy after me, then he shouldn't be a problem when I actually face him._

Gradually the other knights got up from their beds, yawning and heading for the basement to get food.  Bow however stayed in bed, and looked up at the ceiling dizzyingly.  _This could be dangerous, if it doesn't happen right._

He had no idea how right he was.

* * *

As the sun raised high across the border, King Guardia woke up sweating cold in his delirium, the private hell of his dream world coming to meet the reality of the waking one.  He blinked furiously, trying to drive the images out of his mind, shaking his head as if the demons could somehow be thrown out.

He had dreamed of… something.  Strangely, as soon as he tried to recall what had stirred him to wake up in fear, he could no longer remember.  The figures in the dream were evil, haunting, and disfigured to the extreme - that he knew, but little else could he recollect.  All that was left was the intensely enduring dread that paced his heart and stung his head.  Yes, the demons had been there, in his dreams, even if he couldn't remember them exactly.

He got out of bed quickly, anxious to get out and see if his daughter had made it home safely last night.  Once Nadia failed to return to the castle after sunset, the King was becoming too anxious to stay up, so he resigned himself to his room, only to find sleeplessness there as well.  He had ordered his servants to tell him as soon as Marle had arrived home, but he knew none of them dared enter his room once he was supposedly asleep.  At least he didn't wake up with the sun in his face again… apparently the workers of the castle _were good for something._

The King hurried outside, but was already too late.  Lucca and Marle were up and about, and what was about to happen to them would not stop for anyone.  Not even the King.

* * *

Hours before the King had awoken, and even moments before Bow was first awakened, Lucca was dreaming.

_"Mommy!"_

_The crunch, the scream, the turn of the corner, and then the horrifying visions of blood.  The small, powerless __Lucca__ looked onwards, terrified and feeble.  "Mommy," she whispered to herself._

_The vision of her writhing, bloody, destroyed mother was too much, and she began to fall to the floor, gasping for air that would not come to her.  The knock on the door, as she kneeled on the ground, helpless.  She turned to face the wooden frame, stomach churning, her eyes hazy and barely taking in a fragment of what lay around her._

_A voice called out, for her.  A familiar, important voice.  "__Lucca__!"_

_Her father, at the door.  "__Lucca__, please!"_

_The screams overrode her, immobilizing her in her place.  She wanted to go, but she could not.  Only the shrill screams, and the powerful call._

_"__Lucca__!"_

"Lucca!"

The young girl's eyes tore open, and she found herself facing the roof of Guardia Castle, with the beads of cold sweat dripping down her face.  She pushed herself up from the bed, and looked towards the hard wooden door from which the voice came.

"Lucca!"

It was Marle's voice, she quickly realized.  Not her father's at all.  She rushed out of bed and moved across the guest room she had been lodged in, opening the door for the young princess.  Marle's expression was haggard and worried as the door swung open, but Lucca's showed nothing but relief.

"Marle," she said weakly between deep breaths.  "I'm glad you're here."

"Is something wrong?"  Marle asked, her voice chided with concern.

"Yes," Lucca instantly replied, holding her forehead in her palm as she tried to wipe away the stinging drops of water.  "No," she paused, "sort of, I guess."

"Well what is it?  I could hear you talking and rustling in your sleep from my room down the hall.  What's the matter?"

"I… I don't know," she replied truthfully.  "I've been having these dreams, over and over lately.  And, they're, well, scary."

Marle moved into the room and shut the door behind her.  "What are they of?"

"This… bad thing, that happened in my past."

"Oh," a sentimental pause, "that thing that you don't like to talk about, right?"

"Yeah."

Marle was silent for a moment, gazing Lucca up and down for a moment, thinking of something to say.  "Are you ok now, though?"

"Yeah, I guess."  The purple-haired girl's voice was still shaky, but she looked calmer, and her breathing was nearly back to normal.  "I'll be fine in a little while."  She managed a weak smile, which Marle returned with equal force.  "Sorry for waking you up."

"Actually, I was already up.  The sun's rising soon, and I'm usually up with it anyways.  Today though, I was worried about a couple of things."

"Like what?"

"I'm not quite sure, but lately I've just had this feeling.  Like…like there was something up. You know what I mean?"

"Sort of.  Ever since these dreams have been coming, I've been really uneasy.  It's just like there's something big coming, and I know it."

"Yeah, exactly.  I just have no idea what."

Lucca replied with silence, signaling she too had no idea.  A thought, or rather a question, quickly shot into her head though.  "Who was that Bow character from last night, though?"

Marle instantly looked at Lucca with powerfully intent eyes, almost staring with bewilderment at her friend.  She found herself having to put a silence on her own thoughts before she could voice them.  "He's a brand new knight that the Chancellor recruited a little while ago.  What of him?"

"He's…different," came the hesitant reply.  "There's something about him that's kind of off-setting.  Like he has an aura or something."

"He's quite good-looking too, isn't he?"  Marle found herself surprised to be telling her thoughts so freely, yet couldn't help from asking the question.

"Very," Lucca replied with a smile, staring numbly at the wall, trying to recant the man's face.  "But still, there's something about his, his…"

"Eyes."

"Yes."

"They're so dark."

"But they have something under them.  Something he wants to hide."

"Why would he have to hide something?"

"I don't know, but it's there, that much I'm sure of."

Marle looked down for a moment, trying to recall the few glimpses she had dared to take into Bow's beautiful eyes.  She tried looking past them for a moment, to look deeper, but she could not.  "I don't think so, Lucca."

Lucca stared at the blonde-haired princess for a moment, before saying, "We'll see.  If there's something there, it'll come out eventually."

Marle nodded, "yeah, it will."

Lucca sighed strongly, before trying to change the subject.  "How about we go down to the kitchen and see if we can pick up some early food?"

Marle grinned, and then agreed, "Ok, let's get going.  Get dressed and I'll meet you in front of the stairs in five minutes."

"Alright," Lucca replied cheerfully.

Marle smiled, heading out of the room, towards her own in order to change into some day clothes.  As she did so, she reminded herself to go see her father sometime soon, as she had been told he had waited up for her most of the night before, and gone to bed right before she arrived home.  _He was probably worried about me.  She walked into her room, and began to change into something appropriate for the kitchen._

Unfortunately she never got close to the kitchen.  In fact, in little time, the kitchen would be the farthest thing from her mind.

* * *

The wind was silent, which was very strange to the boy's ears.  Usually accustomed to its tenacious on-turn, and its deafening hallow, the sudden silence was almost disheartening.  Of course the rumbling in the boy's stomach more than made up for it.

Too many days he had gone without food, and even though the cold of the night no longer accompanied him, the pain in his stomach was a valid substitute.  He had been wandering now for countless hours, searching for a place where light would pierce the branches of the trees.  Perhaps then he would find a way out of the forsaken place in which he resided.

The ground still rumbled often, but now he was having trouble hearing the word it spoke.  His mind had turned numb in its lack of use, and nothing was about to interact with it.  The few unnamed beasts and rodents that inhabited the wood strayed away from his dainty presence, and the masses of trees were nothing but that; nameless, imageless masses.  This would not do well for anyone, much less a six year old boy lost and alone.

Strangely though, as he continued to push onwards through the brush, he had not cried.  In all the fear, pain and apprehension of his mind and body, he had not cried.  Whether it was because he realized such an action would do nothing for him, or merely because the thought had not occurred to him was unknown, but he had not done it.  And soon, he wouldn't even have a need to.

Ahead of him lay a small clearing - a very unnatural, very strange clearing.  For just moments before, there had been a tree there - a very large, tall tree.  And now, it was gone.  In its place was something else entirely.  Something strange and unnatural in itself.  There, in a small patch of grass, was a ball.

Now this ball was unlike most others of such design.  True, it was round and had dimensions like that of any other ball, but beyond that, it was nothing like most balls.  For starters, its color was not constant, which is strange for _anything in general, especially such a ball.  Its tinge changed from blue, to purple, to black, to red and then to green slowly over time, always alternating between the five, and never staying as one color for too long.  Even through these color changes though, the ball was somewhat transparent as well.  Should one feel the need to, they would be able to see the green grass beneath the ball; if they looked hard enough.  It was also a fairly large ball, nearly half the size of the small boy himself, and almost as wide as the tree-trunk that had once been in its place.  It was also perfectly smooth and cool to the touch.  Never did it grow warm or cold, or rough in disgust, instead it was in a constant state of perfection.  You could imagine, then, the young boy's surprise, when he saw such a ball, directly in front of him._

The boy stopped in his tracks, his eyes - always alive and powerful - growing wide in amazement at such a strange sight, here, in the middle of an otherwise empty forest.  For several tense moments, he did nothing but stare at it, watching it change color from green to blue, and then to a dark shade of black.  The boy's nearly ghost white eyes reflected the black in sheer understanding.

Then, though, the ball did something that was perhaps the most disorienting of all its properties.  It talked to the boy.

"_Crono..."_

The boy jumped back, pressing his back to a small tree-trunk.  The word slithered from the ball, echoing around the boy, and through the rest of the forest.

"_Crono," it whispered hoarsely, as though it were struggling in its last breath.  The boy was only slightly alarmed, only slightly worried, but very much intrigued.  Though it said another's name, he felt as though it were somehow calling to him, telling him something; __warning him of something._

The boy took a hesitant step forward, and the ball almost _sighed, as though it were in fact alive, and struggling for life.  Another step, and then it was within reaching distance.  The boy extended a hand, and reached to touch the perfect shape of the ball, now returning to pitch blackness._

* * *

Marle tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Lucca to come from her room.  She sighed in an annoyed tone at the slow pace which her friend moved at.  Surely she was faster than this…surely she had to be, since she _had at one time managed to dodge a certainly lethal attack from Lavos.  Obviously, after such an experience, everything else seemed to move at a snail's pace.  Even so, Lucca sure was taking her time._

Because of this, before the two could even set off for the kitchen, Marle was startled by a soft touch on her shoulder.  She whirled around to see a young-faced page, with a note in hand.  "Princess Nadia," he began, looking hesitantly at her and waiting till she prompted him to go on.  "The Chancellor would like to see you in his room, as soon as possible."

Marle nodded, catching her surprised breath before smiling and chuckling easily, "I wonder what our dear Mr. Green needs with me now."

"Excuse me?"  The young boy asked, almost as though she had talked about a totally unrelated subject.

"What?"  Marle replied, almost as bewildered.

"Did you just say 'Mr. Green'?"

"Yes, of course.  It's the Chancellor's last name."

The young man regarded the princess strangely, like she had been speaking incoherently.  "Excuse me, Princess Nadia, but we don't _have a Chancellor Green at this castle."_

Marle fired an estranged look, lack of understanding obvious in her eyes.  "What do you mean we don't have a Chancellor Green?"

Lucca finally stepped out of her room, jogging quickly to catch up with Marle, about to apologize for her timing when she saw the strange look of the boy in front of Marle.  Her curiousness was instantly peaked.

"I mean, ma'am, that that is not the name of our Chancellor."

Lucca heard the last snippet of conversation, and as she stepped up beside Marle, she asked, "What's this about?"

Marle didn't answer her, her attention purely resting on the words of the boy.  "Then what, pray tell, is the name of the Chancellor?"

The boy's face reached a climax of confusion, right as he answered her, "Well, it's Yakra, of course."

Lucca and Marle's expressions were instant mirrors of one another - a perplexed mixture of horror and non-understanding.  Surely they had not heard the boy right.  "Say that again, please."

"Yakra, ma'am, Chancellor Yakra."

Marle and Lucca looked at each other, reading the expressions they saw with perfect clarity.  Both knew with absolute certainty that Yakra was not the proper title, but both knew with equal certainty they were not sure.  

"Marle," Lucca gasped.  "Marle, I…I can't remember now."

Neither could Marle.  When she'd asked the playful question of the boy, she'd done it purely from reflex.  Ever since coming back, she had called the Chancellor by his last name.  It had always been the same since, so why not now?  But even as she tried to recall the last time she had called him by that name, she could not.  She searched frantically in her mind for a point in time that would confirm her reflex, hoping to remember even one instance when she had called him Chancellor Green.  Strangely though, she could not.

"Neither can I."  She replied to Lucca, her face abhorred in confusion.  "Lucca, I can't ever remember calling him Green."  The incongruity of the situation caused her heart to pump at inhuman speeds, her mind racing anxiously for even the most fleeting of memories, the most basic of situations.  Try as she might though, she could not bring any to mind.  The only reason for this, obviously, was that the Chancellor's name was _not Green, and was, in fact, Yakra.  The realization of such a thing scared her immensely._

"Wait a minute," Lucca cried, grabbing onto Marle's arm with a shaking hand.  "Marle, I don't even remember beating Yakra now.  It's like it was erased from my memory."

"Or…"  Marle looked into Lucca's frightened eyes, asking her of the truth they both suddenly knew was there, yet failed to accept.  "Or, erased from---"

"No!"  Lucca almost shouted, defiantly putting down the idea that was prevalent in her mind.  "We _did defeat him.  I know it!"_

"But I can't remember it, Lucca!  It's like it never happened!"

"But it had to, even if we can't recall it directly."

"But…"

"No," Lucca reaffirmed, "no 'buts'.  We had to have killed him; it just wouldn't make sense if we hadn't."

Marle was silent, looking downwards, and still trying to recall the Chancellor's real name.  Only one came to mind.  "Lucca, did you bring any weapons?"

"No, of course not."

"Wait here, I'm going to get my bow.  We have a meeting with the Chancellor after all."

Lucca nodded gravely, realizing even in her brashness that she could not escape the situation.  The Chancellor was Yakra, and it had always been so.  Their petty denials and attempts to reclaim their memories were useless.  Nothing could escape the righteous flow of time.  Not even the memories of a two young girls, who had seen the world, from several different points of view.

Marle hurried to her room, and rummaged through her boxes of mementos from her various travels.  Tonics, armors, glorious and beautiful charms and all the like.  Finally her hand came to rest on a small, folded bow that had once been laying in an old Grave, for a legendary warrior.  She withdrew the Valkerye, loaded it fully with the small yet powerfully charged arrows, and then tucked it into her large side pocket - thankful for its compact size.  Then she closed the old chest, and breathed deeply, hoping she would not be forced to use the weapon.  She hoped her memories lied, and her basic intuition reigned supreme.

Her hopes, however, were sorely misplaced.

* * *

_The bodies._

_Everywhere the bodies: nothing but the absolutist presence of them, surrounding him in air-choking death, obsolete integrity fading ever-faster.  His friends, the ones whom he had come to cherish so, ones he knew cherished him just as much; perhaps more.  He would not die._

_He rose up defiantly, body surging with newfound power.  The pang in his chest, ripping through his body, surging through his blood, and creating him anew.  Like an insect - that was all Lavos was - nothing but a worthless insect, about to die.  He fulfilled the idea, bringing it to its full potential.  Lavos was killed, by this boy's hand._

_Strangely though, even as he felt the eternal life-force being drained from the creature, he had an intuition, a moment of understanding between beast and man.  A moment of infinite potential.  Then it was gone, only to be forever present._

Crono turned restlessly in his sleep, kicking off what remained of the blanket that covered his body.  His fever had grown, passing the limits of most illnesses known within the Guardian kingdom.  He had only been able to eat small morsels of food brought by his mother, and his sleep was becoming more and more troubled.  He often merely laid awake, shivering under covers and trying to calm his mind to a point where he could rest.  When sleep finally did claim him, it was often filled with visions of horror and painful memories.  Images burned their way into his mind, images he would've rather forgotten long ago.  The few patches of dreamless slumber he had were small and worthless in their lack of quantity; and nothing he tried could induce such sleep in longer periods of time.

He tossed and turned, mumbling something inaudible and barely of the English language, his lips too dry and parched to allow him to speak correctly.  Something about the dreams called out to him, warning him of something much larger coming on the horizon, something that threatened him far more than this sickness.  Far more, perhaps, than even Lavos himself ever had.

* * *

Bow stalked the hallways intently, looking for nothing but searching for something.

The thought in his head would not leave him, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, to push it away.  Someone, or something, had wanted to keep an eye on him, and for what reason he could not say.  No one knew his motives for being in the castle, and no one yet knew what kind of power he truly donned.  He had been careful to keep such secrets to himself, and to make sure that no one came close enough to him to find anything out.  His assurances of this were strong, but still, the thought hung to him.

_What if?_

If this was happening too quickly and the timing of the entire project was thrown off, it would all be for naught.  The fate of something far more important than either he or anyone else lay in his hands, and he did not intend to allow that something to just slip away.  So much had it done for him, and so little could he do to repay it.

_But still, what if?_

* * *

Marle walked with a concentration about her that had rarely been seen since Lavos' destruction.  Her eyes were more tunneled than the hallways she haunted, and even Lucca, despite her growing apprehension that perhaps Yakra had returned, walked powerfully and with the utmost confidence.  Marle's hand had not left her Valkerye since she had escaped her room, and her heart was thudding with each step she took, her legs shaky beneath her.

Across the castle's main lobby she walked, and past the throne room, up towards the Chancellor's bedroom.  Upon reaching it, they asked the attendant outside if they could speak with the older man.  The young female worker told them he was not in his room, and had gone to the basement before the sun had come up, mumbling about a shell of some sort.

The pair quickly thanked the young woman, and then headed back down, towards the basement.  Marle's strides quickly became longer with each step, till she was forcing Lucca to jog in order to keep up.  Her mind was no longer locked on merely finding the Chancellor, and finding out if their memories lied or not, but on determining if Yakra was the only thing that had been erased from her memories.  In a bout of fear, she determined it was not.

After several more minutes of walking the hallways, the two headed down the stairs to the basement, just as the sun's rays were beginning to overpower the windows of the castle.  Elegant yellow light shone in, and ran amok with the eyes of the people within.  Their pace slowed slightly as they walked down the stone stairs, a weak odor of some sort climbing up the flight of steps.

They reached the bottom stair, then turned the corner, and faced into the main room of the basement.

The Chancellor was there, standing and facing them.  He was smiling.

* * *

Bow found himself in the kitchen, the few early risers of the day eating slowly, as the sun began to filter into the room.  His mind was still earnestly confused, and he couldn't even concentrate on one thought long enough to order food, or to formulate a plan to find out who had sent the spy to the knight's room.  Somehow, Bow knew the answer to his questions would come upon him - if not by luck then by fate itself.  Of this he was certain.  How he knew so though, mystified even him at times.

* * *

Marle stopped, barely in the room itself as she stared intently at the Chancellor.  Lucca halted directly beside her, staring with equal alarm at the hideously crooked smile of the old white-haired man.  Something about it offset them both, something all too familiar for their own good.

"Hello, Princess."    The words slithered out of his mouth, as he elongated the "S" sound, worming the noise around all three of them.  Marle fought back a shudder.  "Anything I can do for you?"

Marle said nothing, her eyes unblinking as she looked at the old man.  _He knows, she realized.  __He knows **we know.  "Perhaps, Chancellor.  If only you would remove that silly costume."**_

Lucca clenched her fists, and Marle gripped the handle of her bow tightly.

The Chancellor just smiled, wider, his face bending at an angle not possible by any convention.  An inhuman angle.  "But of course, dear Nadia."

* * *

Bow lay back in a chair against the eastern wall of the kitchen, his eyes closed and his mind attempting to settle to a normal pace.  He grabbed at the handle of his sword tightly, grasping the strongly wrought piece of metal with both hands.  He tilted his head back, against the wall and took in a deep breath, reassuring himself that he had done the right things, made the right moves.  He would not be found, not until he wanted to be.   His mind began to calm, settling into a peaceful wake.

Through the wall though, he felt, rather than heard, a large explosion, and his wake was quickly shattered.

It had come from the basement treasure room, he quickly realized.  The other soldiers had only heard a slight pop, not even enough to garner their interest.  But Bow's instincts were too finely tuned to pass up something like this.

He rose up off the chair and sprinted towards the stairs.  The others in the room watched him with strange regard, the brashness of his movement catching them unawares.

_If that was what I thought it was, this isn't good at all._

* * *

The boy's hand trembled as he reached out, the fingertips wavering in the non-existent wind, his eyes wide and shining back the blackness of the ball.  Just a couple more inches, and then they would be together.  The ball cried out to him, almost pulling his hand ever closer, the feeble will of a boy against the presence of a dying God.

With eyes burning in splendid white valor, the ball turned to a brilliant luminescent glow, and the boy touched it with the tips of his fingers.  Perfection.

* * *

An over-powering clash of raw power meeting tainted flesh coursed through the air, as the fires on the walls began to wane out, and the Chancellor took his true form.  A flash of lightning struck his position, and it was as if he were set aglow by it, illuminating his form from the inside out.  The Chancellor began to change.

Marle withdrew the Valkerye from her pocket, and made sure it was loaded, as Lucca prepped whatever attacks she could.  Then they waited for a moment, as Yakra took form.

He was vile, a pugilistic color of brown stained with black spots that only added to the ghastliness of his features.  Somehow, even in his monster form, a voice came from him - a horrible, bone chilling voice that was evil incarnate.  "Better… Princessss….?"

"Much," Marle replied, quickly taking aim and hitting the immobile form of Yakra square on with a blast from her bow.  As the arrow plunged itself into the creature's skin, a shock of pure energy came from it, and coursed its way through Yakra's body.

The creature howled, only able to enjoy its agony for a second, before Lucca sprung a circle of fire, and whipped it at him. Marle and Lucca then split, each taking a flank of the creature as he proceeded to be burnt badly.  Marle shot another arrow, and another surge jolted through Yakra.  Not knowing which way to turn, he fired a needle from each of the holes on the top of his body, one aimed at each of the women.  They both easily avoided the blow though, both taking another pot shot at the monster.

"Antipode!"  Lucca shouted to Marle, as Yakra tried desperately to fight off the pain, as well as choose a single target he could corner.

"Right!"  Marle shouted back, dropping her bow for a moment, in order to concentrate enough to focus her magic.

Oddly though, she could not.

She frantically tried to remember just _what to do, what the thoughts were that could formulate the magic into a viable substance.  The very thought of it, though, seemed torn from her memory, like she had never even used magic before in her life.  She stood there, motionless, trying to remember for several moments, even after Lucca had fully prepared her side of the attack._

Yakra picked up on the lack of motion from Marle, and turned to face her, a smile present on his face, if one was even plausible on such a beast.  He readied an all out assault, preparing the sharpest of his spiked weapons for her.

"Marle!"  Lucca yelled, her mind rampant as she tried to determine what was wrong.  _She's completely unprotected!  He's going to kill her if she doesn't do something right now!_

Just as Lucca was considering using what she had gathered to attack Yakra, and Marle was closing her eyes in brutal concentration, the creature sprung.  Five long tendrils exploded from out of his back, shooting through the air for a moment, before directing themselves right at Marle's frozen position.

A being flashed, and the spikes fell useless to the ground, a fourth presence suddenly having entered the room.

* * *

Bow ran for all he was worth, the direness of the situation somehow filling his mind, though he had no idea even _what the situation really was.  He clambered quickly down the basement stairs, turning the last corner, and finding in amazed silence the scene of a Marle stuck in a set spot, a Lucca who was screaming in angst-filled peace, and a beast firing some sort of…__things out of his back._

Bow quickly realized what those things were.

He leapt from his awkward position on the balcony of the stairs, unsheathed his sword, and using a power foreign to most humans, slashed all five of the long spikes from the air, sending them useless into the corner of the room.

* * *

"Marle!"

Nothing but helpless screams, that was all.  Marle shook in frustration, staring at her unmoving hand, willing it to pull forth some form of the magic she had so grown used to.  It would not though.  Her heart sank.

She heard the spikes being shot from Yakra's back, listened to them cut through the air with deadly precision, and in a single moment, accepted defeat.  She dropped her head, as she waited for the deadly daggers to pierce her body.

They did not.

With silent grace they fell to the corner of the large room, hurled aside by some unknown force.  Catching them in the corner of her eye, she brought her head back up, searching for her unheard savior.  Bow landed almost directly in front of her, sword in hand, and eyes gleaming in black light.  "Are you alright?"  He asked, his eyes - so perfect, so black, so _true - looking at her with pride-filled concern.  She nodded, and he smiled weakly, quickly turning to face Yakra._

The beast screeched as he realized his attack had failed, and, concentrating his effort on the human man, fired volley after volley of tendrils at him, all of which Bow nimbly avoided.  Slowly he drew away from Marle, allowing her and Lucca to again flank both sides of the beast.

With the thrill of Bow's faultless eyes still present, a flood of memories long-searched for came flooding back to her, as the icy cold sensation of magic flowed through her hand.

"Marle, now!"  Lucca cried, the flames on her hands yearning to be expelled.

The young princess merely nodded, charging as much power as she could into her blast before flinging it with full force at Yakra.  It nearly froze the beast upon contact, icy composure overwhelming his form.  No sooner though, Lucca had hit the beast with her flames, quickly thawing him out in a painful manner.

Yakra cried, his thick skin peeling from both the freeze and the burns, the deep voice that served him wailing in agony.  Bow stopped avoiding the beast's attacks, and flung himself at the creature, sword pointed downwards.  Wasting no time, he plunged the blade into Yakra's centre, and pushed with all the force he could muster.

The beast used its last surge of power to shake Bow from his body, despite the fact that Bow still gripped his sword handle tightly.  So tightly in fact that part of his sword remained lodged in the being's body, snapping the blade in two as Bow was hurled to the floor, just a few feet away from Marle.

With one last gasp Yakra screamed a freakish cry, and then shuddered to the floor.  His body convulsed and began to fade into nothingness, as though he had never been there in the first place.  After a short period of time all that remained was the broken end of Bow's sword, and the arrows that Marle had shot into his body.

Bow pushed himself off the floor, and looked from Lucca to Marle, trying to surmise what had just happened.  Surely this creature had been the one to spy on him, but why, and who was he?  He was not the thing that Bow had come to find, so what?  He knew the two young women were far more informed than he.  "What was that?"  He asked, in his usual calm voice.

Neither girl replied, both staring with dazed looks at the ground where Yakra had been.  Both realized the severity of what had just happened - what it meant to them, to the timeline, to the entire world.  Yakra _had never been defeated.  It was as if they were the only ones to remember such a thing occurring.  This was because, simply, they were.  In the history of the world, Yakra had never been revealed as a fraud, never been attacked and killed by Crono, Lucca, and Marle.  It had never happened._

And that, of course, begged the question - what else had never happened?

"I think we better see Gaspar at the End of Time.  This is serious," Lucca said in a quiet voice, not wanting to upset the tense emotion of the realization.  Marle said nothing in reply, but instead began to cry, silent, burning tears streaming down her face.  It had been erased, everything that had happened when they had defeated Yakra.  Marle could not even remember the conversation she had had with her father that day, not even recall just what had been said.  Mere days before, she could remember the exchange word for word, without pause or precedence - so important was it to her.  Now, nothing.  Nothing except the void that was left behind by something; something of a promise that she had created, and had returned.  A promise that now had never been made.

Marle lowered her head, hiding the tears, and Lucca quickly moved beside her, hugging her young friend tightly.  "It's ok Marle, it happened.  We know it did."

Marle, however, was no longer so sure.

* * *

The boy placed his hand on the ball, and was surprised by the sensation he received.

Smooth.  It was absolutely and bitterly smooth, as though it had been locked up for eternity, and only now brought out into the rigors of the world.  The strange reality was that it had been.

For a few moments he did nothing but feel its perfect texture, running his hand over it for several seconds, enjoying the thrilling exhilaration of something so perfect.  Quickly though, the ball began to talk to him again.

"_Crono…End."_

The words were no longer being said out loud, but were being transmitted _through the boy, as though the ball and he shared some sort of mental link.  The boy merely stared at the ball, again switching between different colors, watching it with unblinking eyes, wondering how such a perfect thing could be.  It spoke again._

"_Crono…must…End."_

The words were useless to the boy, so enamored was he by the ball itself, that little thought was given to the gasping, heeding voice.  The ball began to quiver though, rumbling under the boy's touch, telling him to listen to the words, to pay them great attention.  The boy began to do so.

"_Crono…"_

"Who… who is Crono?"  The boy asked, his voice raspy from lack of use in the past days.

"_The End."_

The boy opened his mouth to ask just what this Crono was the end to, but before he did so, he found his question had been answered.  Not answered, but rather, known to him.  As though he had always known the answer.  He felt foolish for even wanting to ask it.

"_Yes…" the voice scratched again._

The boy then closed his mouth, and put his other hand on the ball.  The object then quickly began to change its shape, losing its ideal texture in the face of something more important than perfection.  The boy, though wanting to pull away, clung painfully to it, feeling it change to a scalier, more gritted surface.  Its true state.

The ball then turned to pitch black once more, and the boy was completely enclosed in its trap, looking with white eyes wider than humanly possible at the thing.  It began to glow, a dark, black glow that trapped away all light and brought nothing but sweet, harmonious darkness.  The glow wrapped itself around the boy, and then filled him whole with its lack of light.

Suddenly, the ball exploded.

In a single, amazing moment, the ball and its black glow shattered from the face of the planet, right in the hands, and eyes, of the young boy.  He was suddenly knocked over, his head hitting the tree trunk behind him in his rapid descent.  Pain shot through his skull, as he tried to get up from the floor.  The black explosion of the ball had blinded him, and he blinked painfully in order to try and clear it from his vision.  In time he did so, and he was suddenly shown the true nature of the ball.

Where the large orb had stood was now a tree, a tall, green-filled tree that had always been there.  The boy looked up and down the tree, admiring the width and age of it, yet knowing that it was not there at all.  He had been told, told by the tree's creator, that it was not _really there.  No - he knew what had really been there.  Perfection had been there, nothing else.  The tree was a contradiction to the truth, yet so was the ball supposedly._

The young boy smiled, then with renewed purpose, stood up, and began to walk forward; in the direction he knew the exit to the forest was located.  The voice told him that was the direction.  The voice, now, was with him, forever.  The boy knew this, and smiled at the thought.

"_Crono…" it called to him, in his mind, echoing through his brain and saturating it with the name.  The purpose.  The source.  "__Crono…"_

The rumbling in his stomach gone, the young boy walked out, _black eyes suddenly shining wide, alive with the fires from within.  His eyes were now dark, darker perhaps than even the ball's glow had been.  Or perhaps exactly so.  These were his eyes now, his true eyes._

"_Crono…"_


End file.
